The Magnitude of These Small Hours
by A Beauty to the Rhythm
Summary: "The moment hits them both squarely on the chest. Images from the last hour flicker between them; hot, sweet memories they know will never completely fade, no matter where this takes them." Every second of the wondrous, magnificent things that happened between "Beckett, what do you want?" and "Made you a coffee." Post-Always. Now complete.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: This is the very first Castle fic I ever wrote. It's been sitting patiently on my computer since January and I can't think of a more perfect time to share it with you. I've broken it into four parts and I'll post one each day to help us all survive this week. _This chapter is not rated M, but the subsequent ones definitely will be. _Immense thanks to Meg, for a friendship that brings smiles and giggles every day, and who is always there whenever I need hand-holding or help brainstorming :) - Bri x_

_And now, let's cast our minds back to the beginning of Rick and Kate..._

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><p><strong>The Magnitude of These Small Hours<strong>  
>Part 1<p>

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><p>Kate stares straight ahead as the elevator rises. Rainwater drips from her hair into the deep plush of the carpeting, but she doesn't notice. Not that she'd give a damn anyway.<p>

Castle's doorman had offered her a towel when she'd shown up in the lobby, soaking wet and shaking. She'd been prepared to flash her badge to get in, but when she'd reached for it she found her waistband empty. Luckily, it was Sam on duty. She'd have to apologize later for stalking past him without their usual friendly chat.

The muscles in her calves twitch as they adjust to her sudden stillness. It had only taken her six minutes to run to his loft from the park across the street from her apartment. Twice on the way she'd stopped abruptly, doubling over, clutching for the nearest brick wall or cold steel of a parking meter, almost vomiting, sick with the knowledge of how incredibly massively she had screwed up.

Their last conversation runs on a loop in her head. Strangely, it's not his confession of love that she remembers most vividly - he was right, she'd known that for a while, had been living for months with it wrapped around her like a warm coat - they were not the words that had shocked her.

_So this is … over. I'm done. _

She hadn't expected to feel the loss so immediately. She hadn't expected it to feel the same as when Detective Raglan had delivered his rote and unconvincing apology thirteen years ago. She hadn't expected to feel the weight of it press down on her chest, as real as any bullet.

But she couldn't just pull a U. Her vendetta was not cruising down a quiet suburban street, it was going ninety on the highway. When the door slammed behind Castle, she'd gotten the panicked feeling she'd just missed her exit.

_Done?_ No. It couldn't be over. He wasn't on a slab in the morgue or in a box in the ground. There was still a chance. There had to be.

So yes, she'd stumbled a couple of times. But both times she had straightened, her resolve hardening in her. Four years he had been fighting for her. For them. Now it was her turn.

Yesterday morning, she'd been prepared to let herself into him slowly, let them adjust to the temperature and enjoy their beginning. For weeks she'd been waiting for him to ask her somewhere, to do something, just so she could finally say yes. It had paid off - when she accepted the invitation to his John Woo marathon, she'd soaked up his reaction like a proud child. Drank in his awe like it was a cure.

It seems ridiculous to her now, too light for all that's transpired in the hours since, but after they'd made their plans she'd had a firm little talk with herself about putting out on the first date.

Now she's prepared to give him everything. Anything it takes, all at once if he needs it.

The elevator opens and she can't wait even the thirty seconds it will take to walk to his door. Her phone is in her hand and her thumb finds his name in the recent call list before she knows what she's doing.

He doesn't answer, and for a sickening moment she wonders if it rang as many times as it usually does, if he declined the call, but she doesn't allow the thought to linger.

The flat soles of her boots make no sound as she plows down the hallway. She hesitates for just a beat before her knuckles meet wood, but it isn't because she's nervous, or has even a shred of doubt. It's just the breath she needs to calm down, to prevent the knock from sounding like the ones she executes when she's wearing her bulletproof and gripping her Glock. She needs him forgiving, not startled out of his wits.

He doesn't take long to answer the door, wearing a look of innocent friendliness. Who was he expecting to find? Downstairs neighbor asking to borrow half a cup of sugar? She waits for the adjustment she knows is coming, and in a harsh, impossibly fast shift, the line of his mouth hardens, eyes dulling in the space of a second.

He's angry. It has the opposite effect on her that she assumes he wants it to have. He looks so handsome, those impossibly broad shoulders filling the crisp black-cherry fabric of his dress shirt. Oh, Castle. Her head empties dizzyingly. She teeters on the knife edge between her intense, long-kept-secret love for this man (huh, that's what it is, isn't it?) and her pure and shockingly carnal desire for him.

She's barely breathing, but she _smells_ him, more than just expensive cologne and clean linen, but the darker, warmer scent that comes from a person's blood, the one that doesn't change with clothes or bottled scents. It's the smell that has haunted her for four years, the one that follows her home after work.

A few weeks ago, Castle had spent the last hour of the day sitting at her desk while she'd shared with Ryan to sift through a vic's financial records. Her coat was hung on the back of her chair, and she couldn't help but notice that Castle's back was pressed against it, oh so casually, the fine hair at the nape of his neck brushing over the collar. Somehow, it gave her a breathtaking glimpse into what it would be like to be intimate with him. He'd acted like it was the most ordinary thing in the world, but she could _feel _him as surely as if he was leaning back against her own shoulder.

She'll never _ever _tell anyone that when she got home that night, she'd hung her coat up in her closet, buried her nose in the collar, and inhaled until she couldn't detect any of him left on it.

What had lingered on her coat was a pathetic trace compared to what was emanating from the man standing in front of her.

"Beckett what do you want." It comes out on one breath, no punctuation, all sloping downwards. There's not even a glimmer of hope in it. It demolishes her.

She doesn't trust herself with words. Experience has taught her that when it comes to him, hurtful, stupid things fly out of her mouth before she even has a chance to think about how they will sound. If she launches into a flowery apology, it's bound to end in disaster. In the box, she knows how to stay in control, knows how to get what she wants. Castle, in this as in so many other things, is the exception to the rule.

There's only one thing she can say that's safe, one thing that's true.

"You."

Suddenly, the momentum that's been building since her last two fingers slipped off the roof of the Rosslyn Hotel comes to a crest. It's the easiest decision she's ever made to unleash herself on him.

She surges forward.

Castle recoils, retreating by three stumbling, uncertain steps. _ You can run, Castle, _she thinks, _but you can't run as fast as me. _Her hands find purchase on either side of his neck, fingers tightening until she can bring him to a stop.

And then her lips are on his and she feels like crying. They're so incredibly soft and warm, like the centre of a freshly baked loaf of bread, just as she remembers from that one undercover kiss that she thinks about more often than he could ever dare to hope. Unlike that kiss, this one is quick, their lips meeting and parting like friends who see each other every day.

She smudges a line down his cheek with the pad of her thumb, a small gesture, trying to convey just a fraction of her deep and aching regret. She doesn't need to look at him to know exactly which emotions are at war on his face.

He looks pained. _I don't need a fucking pity kiss. _

Desperate for more. _Kate._

Bewildered. _How can you do this if you don't mean it?_

She does mean it though, and she owes him so many apologies.

"I'm so sorry, Castle," she whispers. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

His eyes are still closed, and she hopes the kiss is able to breach the barricades of his heart, if not his head. She goes in for another, hungry for that moment where the spark strikes and the fire catches.

The moment doesn't come. His lips kiss her back, but his hands wrap painfully around her wrist and he tears her off of him. She can't imagine a crueler whiplash.

"What happened?" he asks.

"I almost died, Castle, and all I could think about was you," she confesses, eyes wide and honest and brave. "I just want you."

Desperation growls low in her, starving her. She's starting to shake again, and she's got no pride left. It's a last ditch effort when she cranes her neck up in an effort to chase his lips again, but this time he doesn't even meet her.

Cold acid replaces her blood, icing through her veins. He'd really meant it; it was over, she'd ruined it. All she can think is _oh_ _fuck oh fuck oh fuck this hurts. _Her stomach contracts, offering a sudden, clear glimpse of the days that will follow this rejection. Days and months of grief, loss, and emptiness. Just like before. She's been barely living for more than a decade, was clinically deceased for whole minutes after the bullet, but now … she starts mourning herself, because for a split second, Katherine Beckett is dead.

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><p>Lightning flashes. In the whiteness, Castle makes his decision. He has so many questions, but he knows that if they start talking now, there is a chance this could all come apart, unravel at the seams, and his poor body and his poor heart would miss out on finally, finally, being able to touch this woman.<p>

So. Just no. No talking. Not yet.

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><p>She's careening, hydroplaning, out of control with grief. But Castle tilts his face down to catch her eyes, the stormy blue of his boring into her, pulling her back into focus. His eyes are dark, fierce, and frightening. And something else too. Something she wants to believe is <em>need<em>. Before the spark of hope can flame, his hands are on her hips and he's shoving her backwards, shoving her away, but _oh_, now he's following, and her back hits the hard wood of his door a fraction of a second before his body closes around her.

The sound of the door slamming shut swallows her sharp intake of breath.

And then he's on her, devouring her, and _oh _there it is, _there it is_, the free fall drop of passion they've been on the brink of for so long now. It had been intoxicating to look down on. They hadn't been able to help themselves, had inched so close to the edge dozens of times just to taste the thrill.

It's more exhilarating than any roller coaster.

They claw at one another, hands and mouths never stilling. She digs her fingertips into his shoulder blades; he buries his face in her neck. She licks a trail along his jaw; his fingers spread open on her cheek and then travel to grip the back of her head.

They press searing kisses into each other, branding one another, always moving, moving, moving. At first it's just his chest pinning her to the door, but when he scrapes his chin under her ear, her hips buck violently into his. He slams back into her so messily she thinks it's involuntary, but _fuck _it's so good, and then their hips are in motion too, and suddenly they're fully undulating against one another.

His mouth leaves a hot, wet trail along her neck as he dips lower, licking and kissing across her collarbone until he reaches the edge of her shirt.

The moment he sees the scar tucked low between her breasts, his face changes, dropping limp with reverence. Slowly, he unbuttons her shirt and just stares.

She sees it every morning when she gets dressed in front of the full length mirror on the back of her bedroom door. The cut of every bra she owns draws her gaze down to the firm, shining circle. A reminder of the day he almost lost her. Three months of changing bloody bandages made it real to her.

The slack look on his face tells her just how_ unreal _it is to him.

She takes his hand in hers and presses his fingers against the scar, capturing his mouth with hers_._ The flashing surface heat of their earlier kisses becomes deeper, finally burning through that invisible wall that's kept them apart for years.

Castle's tongue presses into her, exploring her mouth in an erotic swirl. She meets him, strong and hard, trying to promise him with this kiss that she's not holding anything back anymore.

It's not enough. What she needs to show him will take more than kisses. She needs more of him. They're in the hallway, writhing fully clothed against his front door like excited teenagers, and she needs him in very adult ways. So she gentles the kiss, decelerating until he opens his eyes.

Their smiles break open at the same moment, timid and hopeful and grateful and just _everything_.

She nudges his nose with hers and takes his hand.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Please be aware that this chapter is rated M._

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><p><strong>The Magnitude of These Small Hours<strong>  
>Part 2<p>

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><p>He follows her dumbly, still stunned by the abrupt turn of events. She leads him through his office, through the open door of his bedroom, right to the end of his bed. It suddenly strikes him that she's never been inside before, but even though she's walking backwards her steps are sure and confident. He's been paying such close attention to her over the years. It hadn't ever occurred that she might have been doing the same. She seems to know the floor plan already and he's sure she's only ever seen the door cracked open one or two times, when she stayed with him after her apartment blew up. Or maybe it's just because she's a cop, trained to take in her surroundings quickly, even in semi-darkness.<p>

They stare at one another as she turns them, that hopeful little smile lifting the corners of her mouth. It's breathtaking. She guides him to sit on the edge of his bed, pressing down on his shoulders gently.

He looks up at her. The top two buttons of her shirt are still undone, and she's close enough that his nose fits nicely in her cleavage, her perfect breasts pressing into his cheeks, the scratch of black lace a rough contrast to her cool, damp skin. Suddenly nothing is more important than warming her up. He opens his mouth against her experimentally, then his tongue flattens against the top curve of her left breast. She shivers and pitches forward into him, hands combing up through his hair.

"Castle," she whispers. "Shouldn't we - don't you want to - ?" _Know more?_ she thinks. There are so many things that need to be said. She'd rehearsed and brainstormed for hours and came prepared to say them.

He shakes his head. "Not right now. Please. Can we just?" _Not stop? Never stop? _They're speaking in halves, but they're fluent in this language. Sometimes they doubt the translation - hasn't that always been their problem? They're in one another's heads, have always instinctively known what the other was thinking, but instead of trusting that, or clarifying it through further conversation, they assume the worst.

She'll let it go this time, but it's something she wants to work on with him. The hot strokes of his tongue over her skin are making it too hard to concentrate right now anyway.

Giving into a long-held fantasy of hers, Kate settles her hands on either side of his head, kneading into his unbelievably firm trapezoids. Thank God he acts like such a child. On several occasions it's helped to keep her mind off the fact that Richard Castle is very much a _man_. She has the distinct feeling that's going to be a lot more difficult to forget in the future. The gravelly sound he lets out when his tongue finds her areola, lips closing around her and sucking until her breast lifts right out of her bra, _yes_, that's all man. The kind of man she wants in her life.

The light tension encircling her ribs snaps; he's undone her bra with an impossibly fast twist of one hand, right through the silk of her top. Paralyzed with lust from Castle's mouth working her breast, she can't even help him undress her as he strokes his hands down her shoulders, bringing her shirt and bra strap along for the ride. In seconds, the fabric is bunched around her hips and she's bared to him from the waist up.

He's licking, teething, tasting her, his eyes closed in concentrated worship, and her blood pounds a hot retreat to hide right where she's aching for him. Her legs are already puzzled with his, so she lets herself sink down, letting his left thigh catch her.

She's completely unprepared for the intense, muscular pressure against her center. His thigh is unexpectedly hard. She wonders if the wetness gathering between her legs is soaking through her jeans, if she's leaving a dark stain on his dress pants. Wonders if he can feel her, warm and wet on his very skin.

When he desperately pushes her name out, a muffled plea into her breast, she thinks maybe he has. She's completely lost in the sensations, in how good he feels, how good he's making her feel.

"Oh my god, Castle." The words come out on such a delirious, throaty sigh that for a moment she forgets where she is and thinks she might actually be at home watching something from her small collection of explicit videos. Then she realizes the sounds came from _her_.

She stiffens.

Castle stops immediately, looking up to find her eyes shut tight. It was always a possibility that she'd panic, but now that he's touched her, tasted her, he's ready to beg.

"Kate, don't do this."

She presses her fingers over her eyes. "Just - give me a second - don't go anywhere." Her breath catches on a sob. Here's her chance, to give him more, tell him what she's thinking instead of letting him assume the worst.

"Sorry," she whispers. "Sorry. I just need a second to adjust. It's…"

Wow, she thinks to herself, this whole being open thing is difficult. She starts again.

"Even though I've imagined how this would be, when we finally let this happen - I can't help feeling like we're a completely different Castle and Beckett all of a sudden." Her inhale is ragged. "People who touch, and kiss, who don't hide behind jokes." She smoothes a thumb over the creases at the corner of his eye. "And you looking at me like this, for more than the two seconds I usually get before we both get scared, and then I just said your name like _that _… it's so much. Incredible," she clarifies, needing him to know just how much she's enjoying it, "but so much."

He wasn't expecting this confession at all. What is that she sees in his eyes? Wonder? Pride?

Castle covers her breasts with his hands, but it's not sexual, it's actually almost like - like he's giving her the modesty she didn't even know she needed.

"We're still us, Kate." But he doesn't call her that often. "Beckett, we're still us," he whispers fervently. She wants to believe him so badly, doesn't want to lose the fun, the smiles, the laughing. This passion of theirs is surprisingly dark. Castle continues. "Not gonna lie, being Castle and Beckett is pretty amazing, but maybe being Kate and Rick will be even better? This is just a different side to us, one that's always been there, but one that we haven't visited before. Brochures looked pretty awesome though," he adds, waggling an eyebrow.

It's just a shade of cheekiness, nothing compared to his usual, but it makes her smile.

"Kate, you know how I feel about you." And oh, she does. Sees it in the blue of his eyes, sees it pouring out of him right now, soaking her in it. "Let go. Show me how you can love. Let me show you how I can love."

She presses her eyes closed once, and when she opens them, she's ready. She's all Kate. She'll show him what she's been hiding, show him this side of her that is soft, and affectionate, and loving. She's missed it, to be honest, is starting to get a little excited about dusting it off.

She leans down and kisses him softly, exquisitely. He's so busy returning the kiss and palming her breasts that he completely misses the wriggle of her hips as she shucks her damp jeans off, steps out of her shoes, and lets her unhooked bra and black silk blouse fall from her hips to the floor.

She brings one knee up to rest on the bed next to his thigh, then the other, and then she's straddling Rick Castle on his bed in just her underwear and he's still wearing all his clothes.

He pulls back to look at her, but she's all long lines in the fuzzy gray darkness.

"Kate? Can I turn on a light?"

She nods. She wants to see him too. Wants this to be real.

He leans over and switches his bedside lamp on. It's warm and low, and when he turns back to her he can't really believe what he's seeing.

Her underwear shimmer, some striking, smooth teal fabric that looks like what ice skater's leotards are made out of. Her body is a thousand times hotter without clothes on, and Lord knows he's done enough daydreaming on the subject. Her breasts are small, but the perfect half-spheres have such a lovely weight to them, and they turn up just slightly at the ends, and he imagines them straining towards his mouth. She may be ten years younger than him, but there's something so strong and real about her legs that make her look like the grown woman she is.

This time, she doesn't waver under his gaze. "Like what you see?"

He thinks for a long moment but comes up empty-handed. "There really aren't words, Kate."

"My turn to look then."

Castle stands, bringing her with him and setting her gently on the floor. He finishes unbuttoning his shirt, kissing her again to distract her as he unbuckles his pants and removes them. He pulls her flush to him when he's done, bodies aligning at last, separated only by two layers now, her underwear and his soft gray jersey boxers.

They kiss for a few minutes, drinking one another in, instantly intoxicated from sharing the same air. At one point she feels her lungs empty, but she hasn't exhaled, and she realizes he's literally breathing her in.

She can't wait any longer. She needs to see him, wants to explore her present now that it's finally unwrapped. She steps back and rakes her gaze over him, fingers following, mouth watering. Castle is … well, he's _fucking _hot. On more than one occasion she's wondered what it would be like to dip her fingers into the waistband of his jeans, to get caught between the button and his skin of his stomach, and is pleased to finally know just how firm he is there. He's _muscular_. Solid. She'd suspected.

But.

Shit.

She thought she wanted him before. Now, desire rushes in her ears, becomes a deafening roar, her body malfunctioning as it tries to decide where to send precious resources like blood and oxygen.

And then she drops her eyes to where he's tenting in his boxers and she's done for. He's rising, wanting. For her. And she has to feel him.

She uses what little self-control she has to nudge him back onto the bed until he's flat on his back, then she climbs between his legs. Her face is level with his boxers, and she already loves the smell of him, a thick, hot scent that is just so deliciously Castle. The thing about gray jersey is that when it's wet, it shows. At the peak of where he's pressing up towards his stomach, there's a dark spot. Kate leans down and presses her tongue to it, letting his flavor burst in her mouth.

He curses on a full-body jolt.

Oops. She hadn't meant to speed things along that much, but he just looked so _delicious_. No going back now, not now that his taste is on her tongue. She hooks her fingers in his waistband, lifting it high enough to slide his boxers down without grazing his erection. Once he's free of them she just stares.

Her face is just inches away from him, and she can feel the heat rising from the silky skin.

"God, you're perfect," she breathes. He probably doesn't need any ego stroking, but she can't stop the words from coming. He'd only referred to his size once, in the interrogation room on the very first case they worked together.

"_Most of my claims tend to be on the large size."_

He was not kidding.

It's all so much better than she had hoped for, headier and deeper and more breathtaking than she'd ever imagined. Because of course she'd thought about him, when her apartment was dark and still, when she wasn't strong enough to keep it all at bay and her fingers had strayed, moving determinedly beneath her sheets. But her mind had only invented the way he'd _felt _- against her, inside her. She'd never been able to picture him fully naked.

"Castle." She looks up his body, peering around his length, and he moans like his dreams are coming true. Well, they probably are, aren't they? She wonders if now would be a good time to tell him just how much she appreciates a good bit of male anatomy. Just how applicable the words 'borderline addict' are.

Hmm. Maybe later. For now, she'll just show him. Kate runs her splayed palms up his thighs, slowly, memorizing every tendon, the way the light dusting of hair feels against her skin. Castle clumsily grabs a pillow from the head of the bed and shoves it under his head so he can watch her and she has to bite her lip to keep from laughing at his eagerness.

She doesn't want to tease. No more wasted time. She unleashes her tongue on him, presses it to the base of him and laps her way up. His skin is hot; he already tastes exactly like the inside of her mouth, but somehow unbearably rich at the same time.

When she reaches his tip, she swirls her tongue around him, counter-clockwise, and his hips jerk, thighs tensing under her hands. He rakes his fingers through his own hair, pulling enough to cause pain, trying to overcome the haze before it takes him under. It's no use. She's just too good at this.

Castle lets her work him until it gets dangerous, then his hands close on her upper arms. She's reluctant, but she releases his now-slick cock and lets him haul her up. He kisses her and she sucks on his tongue the same way she was just sucking on him. He growls then, torn between retaliating against her filthy little moves and the need to revel in the achingly beautiful weight of her body draped on top of his.

His hands slide down her back and encounter - not bare skin.

"Ugh, how are those even still on?" he complains, and Kate chuckles.

He needs to get her naked, but it's not going to be smooth if she's on top of him. He presses lightly on her right hip and she gets the idea, rolling over onto her back, stretching her long, limber body out. Her eyes are dark with lust, the smudged kohl of her eyeliner framing the rollicking boil of arousal he sees in them. He's pretty damn sure he's never seen anything so sexy in his life.

He feathers light kisses down the column of her neck, traveling lower, tongue joining in on the journey, licking and pressing, then his teeth get involved, taking in a mouthful of the skin just under her ribcage and biting down.

"Kate, Kate, Kate," he says as he nips at her, all the while traveling down, down, down. Her knees fall open with the merest suggestion from his elbows. "You're very good with your mouth."

"Mmm. I know."

"The thing is … so am I."

With that, he goes straight for her, using his tongue to press a long line against her through the slick fabric of her underwear. She's instantly swollen, pulse pounding at the surface where he'd stroked her, desperately eager for more attention from his mouth. He doesn't disappoint, teeth nipping at her clit through the cloth, tongue finding her entrance and pushing into her only slightly, it's firm progress hindered by her underwear.

"Off. Off," she manages between heavy, dry inhales.

He obliges. When his tongue settles on her most private flesh, that's it.

He's it.

Her head rolls, eyes fluttering closed, mouth falling open on his name. He grinds his erection into her shin and he's saying something without taking his mouth off her. The baritone vibrations make her arch her hips wildly off the bed. He spreads her open with his fingers and carefully, expertly teases her hood up with his tongue, and then he flicks back and forth with a force that makes her legs twitch.

Kate clenches her jaw and fights to hang on. She's always thought - okay, fantasized - that for her first orgasm with him, they'd go together. But _fuck _he's so good _fuck - _and now he's SUCKING and no one's ever done _that _before-

So she slaps him. His shoulder immediately flares bright pink. He jerks his head up.

"Not the reaction I was aiming for," he growls, but then his eyes find hers and he grins at the desperation he sees there.

"Castle, get up here before you make me come."

He obeys. "Gotta say, Beckett, I'm loving your bedroom voice."

When his face is level with hers, his cock brushes against her inner thigh, only centimeters from where it needs to be. Ragged twin _ohs _escape them.

"You okay?" he asks, even as he's twitching against her. He should offer to stop, but he doesn't want to give her an easy out this time.

"I'm fantastic. That was…" she presses her hand to her forehead, shaking her head a little in disbelief. "Kind of ridiculous."

"Ridiculously good?" He's leering a little bit, but there's a shade of insecurity there too.

"Extremely good," she confirms. "But Castle? I want our first one to be together."

He understands immediately. She wants it to be like how they build theory. When it's good and they work each other up, when they come to the same conclusion in tandem - that's what she wants.

Their lips meet and somehow the fever-pitch of lust melts back into that other four-letter word that starts with an L that hasn't been spoken yet. Everything feels perfect, feels right. That's a new feeling for both of them. Castle wonders how he was ever able to look at her like she was just a hot lay. It was only for a few hours, before she captured his imagination with that mysterious, guarded, fierce look on her face after he'd attempted to diagnose her reasons for becoming a cop. Still. Now she's the woman he wants by his side for - well, for forever.

The moment becomes unbearably tender, and Kate marvels at how they can swing from aroused desperation to this soft, aching wonder. Their kiss decrescendos, ending with a few tiny, grateful pecks, and their eyes meet.

It's time.

Castle holds his weight on one arm and takes himself in hand, eyes never leaving hers. He rubs a line against her, parting her folds and collecting her moisture on his tip. Her eyes almost vibrate with the effort it takes to keep them from rolling back in her head, but she refuses to break their gaze. He positions himself at her entrance, held in the hot hollow of her, and then he brings his hand up to her face, stroking her cheek, just completely in awe.

"Let's watch," she whispers, and he thinks her eyes are reflecting more light than they were a second ago.

They break eye contact at the same moment, and he arches his stomach high so their gazes can meet at where he's about to press into her.

His length is a dark silhouette against the warm glow of light around them. The view is intoxicating.

And then Castle pushes himself into her. Slow, so slowly, so much slower than he ever thought he'd be capable of with her. At first there's resistance, but then he's past the bones of her pelvis and her body gives way, letting him in, deep. He groans as her tight heat envelops him.

Kate struggles to breathe. The burning, the stretching, the simultaneous pain and pleasure; it's almost too much. It's been a while. She's clenching around him, and she knows she needs to relax, but he's _thick _and it feels amazing, and she's always been a bit of a glutton for punishment, hasn't she?

Long seconds pass and he thinks he's found her furthest wall, but Kate knows she can take a bit more. She lifts her hips and releases some of her tension on an exhale, and the last centimeter comes so fast it knocks the wind out of both of them.

He grinds a circle against her and lets out the darkest, longest noise she's ever made a man make.

He tears his eyes from their joining at last, looks up just to make sure it really is Kate Beckett beneath him after all this time, and is thoroughly unprepared to see the two shining lines on her face where tears are making their way down her temples and merging into the dark line of her hair.

But her eyes, God her eyes, hot and glassy but so full of love that his throat tightens. He gets a prickling feeling, like he's about to sneeze, but it's behind his eyes -

And then she speaks -

"You feel so _perfect_."

And a tear of his own falls onto her cheek. He buries his face in her shoulder, feels the shudder of her inhale as they hold onto each other, completely overwhelmed by this beautiful thing that took them four years to build.

"You feel incredible, Kate."

"Castle," she whispers. "You know how happy you make me, right?"

He inhales on his own sob, a single, solitary noise of such gratitude that it makes her body shake and hiccup with the intensity of her own. Because, really, that's all he's ever wanted to do. Make her happy.

As difficult as it was, he's so glad they waited four years. Because if they'd done this any earlier, even yesterday, he's not sure it would have brought them to tears. And that's a gift he was not expecting.

It only takes a few seconds for their bodies to remind them where they are. Kate's the first to come out of it, and she pulls him back from the ache of love into the maelstrom of lust with three dirty contractions of her innermost muscles, squeezing him tight, making him swell again where he's buried deep inside her.

One, two, three. _I. Love. You._

The mouth at her neck starts moving, tonguing her, and his hips roll, pressing her further into the mattress. She wraps one leg high over his hip, her heel coming up to rest on his ass.

She gives him just enough room to pull out of her, slowly, and her breath catches because she's still a little raw. Once he's withdrawn, though, her arousal follows, and his next glide in is easy. Delicious. When their hips meet for the second time, she purrs. He repeats the stroke and glide, establishing a lazy, heady rhythm. Every thrust sends a myriad of ripples zipping through her body, and soon the noises spilling from her throat match the cadence of his thrusts. She can't stop running her hands over his ass, glorying in the knowledge that _Castle_ is the one pounding into her, and her legs wrap around his waist, spread as wide as they can go. He has all of her now, and she knows he'll never give her back. She doesn't want him to.

It's so good. So, so good. Better than good, it's fucking incredible. The perfect way that he fills her, the perfect angles on which he moves, the perfect swing of the weight behind his hips, everything's just perfect, and the tears threaten to start again and she's never cried during sex, but it's so good and she's wanted this for longer than she can admit to herself, and she's so in love her whole body is reverberating with it, and she can't stop staring into his eyes because she sees everything in herself there, mirrored back at her, and she's never felt more loved, and - and -

"Cas - Castle, _oh_, I'm too close, I can't hold on - "

She wants to apologize, because she hasn't lasted long at all, and he's probably not ready, but she wants him with her -

Despite the relentless motion of his hips, she swears she can feel him throb inside her, his cock pulsing. Or maybe that's just her, clenching on every outward glide, her body trying desperately to keep him there. His eyes darken and their stares lock in the most intense interaction she's ever had with another human being.

"I'm right here. I'm with you, Kate. Come with me."

This time, when she focuses on the fact that this is Castle above her, inside her, it's not frightening. It ratchets up her pleasure, sends her over the edge, the heat of the orgasm he's giving her spreading from where he's stroking in her.

His eyes threaten to close when her walls flutter and convulse around him, but he fights through it, determined to keep the connection. They spill one another's names into the air just as as he begins to spill into her. He feels her shuddering around him, and he completely loses it then, every last shred of control, and she's overwhelmed by how hot it is to watch him unravel above her. He's so loud, so rough when he comes, and it just makes it better for her, her body ripping apart with the intensity of it all.

Only when the aftershocks end do they let their eyes close. Castle lets his weight fall on her, and she can hardly breathe, but she doesn't really need air right now anyway. Their foreheads kiss, damp and warm, and then he slides his face into the crook of her neck. She realizes that she's still holding on, fingers pressed into his back, probably to the point of pain. It's the only part of her body that seems to have any muscle left. But she doesn't want to let go yet.

Minutes pass. Maybe someone should say something, but it's not awkward or weird at all. They have always taken each other at face value; they've always let the other person be themselves, and by unspoken agreement they've decided that right now is about melting and reveling in being melted, about letting beats per minute lower.

They don't know it, but they're both thinking the same thoughts, albeit in hazy, floating snatches of consciousness.

Castle moves his head so he can press his lips to her neck, and Kate's fingers finally relax from their death grip hold. She turns her lips to his forehead. They both mean to say something then, to try to express in some original way how deeply they felt that, how it was literally the best sex of their lives, but they're too sated, too comfortable.

Instead, they fall asleep together, still joined.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Two more rounds to go ; ) The next one is quite naughty. You game?_


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Thank you all so very very much for reading. This fic holds a very special place in my heart, and I really hope you're enjoying it :) - Bri x_

_Warning: Again, this is rated M._

* * *

><p><strong>The Magnitude of These Small Hours<strong>  
>Part 3<p>

* * *

><p>It's only fifteen minutes later that Kate wakes up. She's not sure if it's because she's struggling to pull in enough oxygen under the weight of him or because she'd felt him slipping out of her.<p>

"Castle," she whispers. "I can't breathe."

His answering grunt is adorably sleepy. She pokes him in the side.

"No really, I can't breathe. You're huge."

She can feel the widening of his grin buried in her neck.

"Ugh, don't say it," she warns.

He raises his head and looks at her then, equal parts innocent and sly. His hair is damp with her, with _them_, all askew across his forehead. Irresistible. She rolls her eyes to combat the thought, forgetting that she doesn't have to fight it anymore.

"Say what, detective?"

"_That's what she said_. That is what you were going to say, isn't it?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

"Lungs, Castle."

"Sorry." He slides off her but doesn't break contact, keeping the wall of his chest pressed against her side. Still, she startles at how cold she is without her Castle blanket. It makes certain parts of her body stand up and shiver. He notices. Of course.

"Chilly, Detective Beckett?"

"You are such a perv."

Castle raises his head and presses a kiss to the very centre of her obviously cold breast. "And you are stunning."

Just like that, the atmosphere changes. Kate can't breathe again, for very different reasons this time.

"See? We can be both. Rick and Kate," he says, punctuating their first names with two reverent, open mouthed kisses to her darkened pink skin, "Or Castle and Beckett," he says, and then he _bites_ her and _pulls_.

She slaps him. For the second time tonight.

But he loves it. His grin is wider than Texas when he beams down at her.

"If you keep slapping me, Beckett, I'm going to have to spank you."

"Not a chance in hell, Castle." But for the first time, it actually doesn't seem like a terrible idea. She shivers, half from the breeze of air conditioning across her naked torso and half from the thought of him - erm - punishing her. Castle's arm winds around her waist.

"You actually are freezing. How long were you out in the rain?"

"Long enough. I had some thinking to do. Warm me up?"

"Your wish is my command."

Before she can blink, his arms are twining around her back and with one graceful move, he's standing on the floor beside the bed, holding her, chest to chest. Her knees are straining for purchase on his thighs, and the only thing to do is climb up his body like it's a fireman's pole. That gets a laugh out of him. She works herself high enough to wrap her legs around his waist and then she tightens her arms around his neck.

"Pretty smooth moves, Castle. Not bad for an old man."

"Oh, ha ha, very funny. Old man or not, before this night is over I'll have you begging for some rest."

"That a promise?"

Castle carries her across his bedroom, showing off by keeping his hands resting lightly on her hips, letting her do all the work to stay attached to him. She feels strong, alive, She's beaming, bubbling, and it takes her a second to identify the feeling.

It's happiness.

Castle carries Kate into his bathroom, her legs a tight circle around his waist, face buried in his neck. Her tangled hair, still damp from the rain, shields her from the piercing track spotlighting from above. Castle blinks in the sudden brightness before reaching to adjust the dimmer just inside the door.

One glance in the mirror and the sight of them, long and naked and wound together, almost brings him to his knees.

She's weightless, wrapped around him like this. He could hold her forever.

Bracing her to him with one arm, he uses the other to open the glass door to his cavern shower. He presses a few buttons, turns a few knobs, and hot violet water rains gently down from the ceiling, and electric blue jet streams hit his shins from the sidewall.

Kate presses a kiss under Castle's jaw before uncurling from her hiding place in the warmth of his neck. The corners of her mouth lift in amusement when she takes in the new surroundings. She pulls back to look at Castle, her habitual Beckett snark almost too deeply ingrained to reign in, but then their eyes meet.

She just had sex - _earth shattering_ sex - with Richard Castle.

The moment hits them both squarely on the chest. Images from the last hour flicker between them; hot, sweet memories they know will never completely fade, no matter where this takes them.

So instead of teasing him about his high-tech shower, she kisses him again, full and deep, heart somersaulting with the realization that she _can. _His thumbs press into the flare of hard bone above her ass, and she jerks her face away, leaving both of them struggling for oxygen.

"I want you again," she whispers. Volume is the only thing soft about her confession.

Her feet have barely hit the floor when Castle grabs her by the hips, hard, and flips her against the cool granite wall with shocking speed. The move would have knocked any other woman unconscious, but Kate reacts in time to bring her arms up. Her palms slap the smooth wall, her body halting just before it hits.

She silently thanks her many hours in the sparring room, something she usually only does after pinning and cuffing a suspect. She smiles and bites her lower lip. Richard Castle. Who would have thought?

She lets her forearms relax, letting him press her the rest of the way into the wall, slowly, she's a slammed cabinet door sliding home on a soft-close mechanism.

The man is so gentle in everything else, in waiting, in watching. On that swing set in the rain, when she decided to let him love her, she was prepared sacrifice her love of _rough. _The thrill of finding she won't have to sends a fresh wave of arousal coursing through her body.

Castle's all over her, chest, stomach, thighs, crowding behind her, and her breasts feel instantly fuller as he presses her against the cool stone. Their bodies sandwich his cock, and Kate feels like it's the only thing in the room.

Then he lowers his mouth to her neck and _sucks_.

She's confused when he begins to chuckle.

"What?" she asks, voice embarrassingly hoarse.

"Nothing," he laughs, nipping more lightly on her earlobe. "We'll just have to wash your mouth out with soap later."

She doesn't remember letting loose an expletive, but she's not surprised. In the zero-gravity of the months after her mother's death, Kate careened through men, taking far more than she gave. In an effort to prove she was still alive, her bedroom persona took on an almost theatrical abandon. The cursing was an old habit she thought had died hard - she'd been a very quiet lover the last few years.

She's not going to be quiet with Castle. She's never going to be quiet again. Only this time, it doesn't feel like an act at all.

Castle resumes his assault on her neck, biting into the taut tendon he finds there, scraping the grit of his unshaven jaw over her collarbone. When the next moan rises from her chest, she revels in it.

"Enjoying yourself, Beckett?" Castle's voice is almost a growl.

She's not planning to respond, but it seems like he knows that, because the last syllable of her name hasn't even hit his teeth when he peels his body off of hers. Cool air rushes over her wet spine before Castle resettles against her only a fraction of a second later. Only now his cock isn't pressed up between them anymore. It's between her legs.

Kate Beckett is not new to sex. She's been fucked from behind, sure, but she's never just stood upright and still with a man behind her, rising against her. Her legs draw together almost involuntarily, capturing him there. She takes a ragged breath before she looks down.

The half inch of Castle visible between her legs is dark and tight with his desire for her. He's so incredibly hard; she can feel only upwards pressure as his erection strains toward the ceiling, held down only by the crux of her.

When he'd slid himself between her legs, he had parted her with sinful skill. The length of him presses heavily all along her opening, and her clit lounges happily on the ridge that separates shaft from head. Thinking about his delicious topography makes her want to flip him around, taste him, and show him some of _her_ best moves, but Castle's hands are iron on her hips.

Finally, he starts grinding slowly back and forth, sawing at her, and it's the hottest thing she thinks she's ever felt. In seconds, they are both quite literally _purring._

An orgasm begins to build deep within her, buzzing low. One thought cycles on repeat in her head.

_Inside. Inside. Inside._

She tries to tilt her pelvis, to change the angle and catch him on his next slide forward, but his fingers tighten mercilessly.

"You gonna make me beg?" she grits out, pressing her ass into him, hard.

"Not yet," he counters. She's pleased to note that he's just as breathless as she is.

Infuriatingly, he just continues sliding, acting for all the world like he doesn't know what she just asked for. Tension builds in her, skirting but never reaching breaking point.

She's about to make demands when he lifts a hand off her hip and twists it into her hair, grabbing and pulling it into a knot at the base of her neck, waking up a thousand nerve endings on her scalp.

It runs through her body like a punch. If she's honest with herself, she's not sure exactly how she keeps from coming. He's holding her on the brink like it's the easiest thing in the world. Clutch control, she thinks, inanely, from the manual transmission driving lessons she took ten years ago in case she ever had to drive the precinct's ancient surveillance van. He's driven her up a steep slope and is now holding the car of her arousal in place without using the handbrake and disengaging the engine. _How the fuck does he even do that?_

Shit.

Mega shit. She just said that out loud.

_"_You talking about me, tiger?" she can feel his smile on her shoulder blade. All the while he's sliding, sliding, delicious friction building as the water from the shower dilutes the slickness between them, and she decides to be mortified later. After.

But then he starts to slow down. With the change in speed, her own lubrication collects, softening the edges of her feelings. The wet silk of him feels absolutely amazing, but having tasted that friction, she wants more.

"Castle…" she moans.

"Hmm," he says shortly, cryptically, as if he's pondering nuclear physics.

"Hmm what?" She sounds like she's just run a mile, but she tries to inject it with a little bit of the _fucking pissed off _she's starting to feel.

He bites the shell of her ear, then rubs his nose under her jaw. "I think now might be the time to start begging."

"Not a chance." Kate Beckett doesn't beg.

His next stroke takes almost ten whole seconds, not that she's in any state to be counting. It's excruciating. The terrain of him passing under her is exquisite, but not what she wants.

Still, she accidentally moans.

"What's that, Kate?"

"Castle."

"Is that a warning?"

"You're damn right it's a warning."

He stops moving altogether.

"Fuck, Castle. I want you inside me. Now." She's not going to yell. She's not.

"What's the magic word?" he asks, in the filthiest whisper imaginable.

He's such a bastard.

"Now. _Please_!"

"I can see we're going to have to work on your manners. But that'll do for now."

But instead of just entering her like she wants him to, he starts up slowly again. The same slow tempo that was good before is _ridiculous_ after those few seconds of rest, and he knows it.

Her mouth forms a surprised 'o', but no sound escapes. He doesn't miss it.

"See? I think you'll find I know what I'm doing."

Her head rolls on her shoulders. She's seconds away from coming - or passing out, one or the other. Her eyelids feel so heavy she's not sure she could open them if she tried. She presses her cheek into the cold granite and her palms slip a few inches lower on the wall.

Castle kisses her cheek.

"I'm going to make you come now, Kate."

Before she can process that sensational thought, Castle's fingers tighten on her hips. In one fluid motion, he lifts her an inch, bringing her heels off the floor, and then he _tilts_ her and _pulls._

One thrust.  
>He doesn't miss his mark, not even a little. Somewhere in her stupid brain a single thought weighs anchor and begins floating: they fit together perfectly.<p>

One thrust.  
>Fast and vicious, so contrasting from his very first entrance into her on his bed.<p>

One thrust.  
>Her body swallows him whole, and he hits her deepest wall. An ache to silence the stretch.<p>

She starts to come halfway through it. And he knows it, too. Like he planned it. He holds her as her lips fall open and a slew of curses, groans, '_oh gods_', and _'Castles_' come flowing out. Just when the orgasm is about to subside, he brings his fingertips to her, pressing hard on her small collection of nerves and circling once, twice, trampolining her back up high, extending her ecstasy by long amazing seconds.

He holds her through what she'll later tell him was the longest orgasm of her life. He moves gently inside her as her body tightens and loosens around him a hundred times in the space of a second. His own jaw clenches with the effort it takes to hold back, to not spill himself inside her just yet.

He holds her as every muscle in her body collapses, as her lungs catch up and her blood rushes back up to her head.

When the last shiver leaves her body, a sloppy, lazy, sated smile blooms on her gorgeous lips.

Castle starts to withdraw, reaches for his shower gel and a fluffy shower puff with a shaky breath.

"Excuse me," she asks. "Where do you think you're going?"

* * *

><p><em>TBC<em>

_A/N: We're not quite done with round two yet ;) Also, I think this is going to be five parts, not four._


	4. Chapter 4

_Warning: Rated M._

* * *

><p><strong>The Magnitude of These Small Hours<strong>  
>Part 4<p>

* * *

><p><em>Castle starts to withdraw, reaches for his shower gel and a fluffy shower puff with a shaky breath.<em>

_"Excuse me," she asks. "Where do you think you're going?"_

Kate wheels on him and walks him backwards until he's the one pressed against the wall.

"Um, I just thought I'd let you catch your breath." He looks a bit sheepish, but won't meet her eyes.

Kate's brow furrows. There's more to this than he's letting on. _Walls of your own, eh, Castle? _She looks down and finds him still achingly hard. So it can't be that he doesn't want her. It can't be that he's had enough of her already, because she certainly hasn't had enough of him. In fact, she'd go so far as to say she was thoroughly unprepared for how much more she wants of him.

"That can't be comfortable," she points out gently.

He's silent. There's definitely some deep hurt lurking there. She knows him too well to miss it. Is this a crack in the foundation of them? Had she hurt them so long before she realized it that there's no fixing it now?

"Castle? Did I do something wrong?"

He stiffens at that, shaking his head vehemently. "No, Kate, no, of course not."

"Then what's the matter? I thought you were … into this."

"I am into this," he assures her, pulling her to him and pressing a small kiss to her temple. "Trust me, I am so fucking into this. I'm sorry, I'm being stupid. Sorry."

He still doesn't move or take any step towards letting her get him off like he deserves, like he _needs_. If the rock-hard weight of him against her stomach is any indication.

Kate takes his face in her hands, forces her to look at him. "Castle. Spill it."

He looks like he'd rather sweep it under the rug, but she's unrelenting. This is casting a very unwelcome shadow over their night, and if she's done something wrong, if she's made him think she'd just be able to get him out of her system with a few hours of ecstasy, made him doubt her commitment -

The caustic burn that comes with the thought of causing him pain eclipses the fear that should accompany the idea of being _committed_ to him. But she is. She is.

"Castle."

"It's just … other people … have…" he trails off. He seems to have forgotten her expert training and years of experience in interrogation.

"Other people? Who?"

"Meredith and Gina. They didn't always … want to reciprocate. So I learned to, um, deal with it."

A flare of anger ignites in her at that, quickly roaring into a conflagration. Those stupid, selfish, ungrateful women. The flames are doused by guilt when she realizes how stupid and selfish and ungrateful she's been when it comes to him.

Kate looks into the eyes of this amazing man, a story all his own, with contradictions enough to rival even her own. Underneath everything, he is so purely kind and generous, and he's been taken advantage of too many times, by herself included.

That ends now.

"Hey." She tips his chin up, heart breaking at how small he looks. Sweet boy. "I will never do that to you. I promise."

Kate guides him to sit on the bench that's built into the corner of the shower and then she climbs onto his lap, but she doesn't settle over him, not yet. They need to talk. She's surprised at how easy words come when their sole purpose is to heal him. She'll do anything to heal him.

"Castle, those bit—idiots clearly didn't understand what they had. You have to know there is no way I could walk away from you knowing you still need more." She cringes. That's what she's been doing for years, on a much larger scale. Thankfully, he doesn't seem to make the connection. _Try again, Kate._

"I'm sorry it took me so long to get here, but now that I am, I will never leave you … with a situation to deal with."

He's a man of words, but hers aren't making it through to him - he doesn't look convinced yet.

"Can I tell you something? I think I've been in your shoes, sort of. I've never been the kind of woman that feigns a headache to get out of sex. Because I know how much it can hurt to get turned down. In fact, I'm pretty sure some of the guys I've been with have faked headaches to escape my nyphomaniacal clutches."

He smiles at that, thank God.

"Nymphomaniacal clutches. That has a nice ring to it. Six syllables and related to sex? I knew you were the woman for me."

"You ready for me, Castle? Gotta warn you, I'm a bit full on once I get started, but you probably knew that already."

At last, he clears his throat and comes back to her. "I may have guessed. I mean, you've got a Harley and handcuffs."

"Handcuffs are just part of the job."

"Not the handcuffs I was referring to."

What - when did he? Oh holy fuck, she'd left him alone in her living room all night on the Ben Conrad case.

"Castle! Those were in the bottom of a box in the very back of the hall closet! There is no way you can claim innocent discovery."

"Wasn't going to," he shrugs. "And to answer your question, yes, Kate, I'm ready. I'm ready for full on Kate Beckett."

She glances down again, and he looks so very ready that she inadvertently bites her lip.

She slides off his lap to kneel on the floor. She touches her tongue to the inside of his knee, then runs it up his leg, slowly, teasingly.

When she gets to the warm place where his legs join his body, she travels along the valley there, studiously pretending to ignore the very obvious main attraction brushing her cheek. Then she abruptly switches tactics and takes him into her mouth in one dizzying move. She releases him only to envelop him once more, creating a tight, wet vortex with her mouth. She plays with him, stroking, inhaling him, but never letting more than half of him disappear into her. Her fingernails scratch at his thighs, then trail lightly over the weight of his testicles. He twitches. _Hmm, like that, do you, Rick? Not as much as you'll like this._

She exhales, relaxing her throat, and on the next glide in, she presses her face so far into him that her nose digs into his belly. He's caught down her throat, and the crazed look in his eyes is so worth not having a very strong gag reflex. Time to pull out her own bag of tricks. Kate hums, letting her vibrations pass into him, massage him, melt him, and then she swallows, once, twice, and the contracting squeeze of her muscles around him draws a long and very filthy word out of his mouth.

She stops her gentle exploration of his now trembling thighs and finds his hands. She draws them to her head, placing them there determinedly. His eyes open - when had he closed them? - and there's a question there, uncertainty. She doesn't want to release him to speak, to tell him yes, it's okay, I want this. I trust you.

But he understands. His fingers press into her scalp and tangle in her hair, and then he's holding her to him and only then does she begin to move, long, deep thrusts that have him writhing and panting and cussing.

This time he doesn't try to stop her. He grits out her last name over and over as he comes, still sheathed deep in her mouth, and she's amused that the tender _Kates_ of earlier have morphed into such desperate, nearly unrecognizable _Becketts._

Body limp, he watches with glazed eyes as she licks him clean and swallows the last of him down.

"You really are extraordinary, you know that? Thank you," he adds earnestly, pulling her up and into his arms. They sway for a moment, dancing to the music of their slowing pulses.

Kate reaches for the bottle he'd picked up earlier and squeezes some soap onto the shower puff. She smiles when she notices the plush Cookie Monster head emerging from one side. Only Castle.

She starts to wash him, carefully, and as she bathes him, she bathes herself in the surprise and adoration beaming from his face.

When she's finished and they're both standing, he returns the favor, laving the suds over her, awakening and then soothing nerves in places she didn't know she had.

"Warm now?" He asks, voice rough. He looks exhausted, and after the day she's had, Kate's not quite sure how she's still on her feet.

"Very warm. Thank you, Castle."

"You're most welcome. As much as I'd like to spend all night in here, our fingertips are shockingly wrinkled. Can I invite you back to my bed for…" he trails off, waggling his eyes suggestively.

"Seriously? Think you can handle more?" she arches an eyebrow.

"Actually, I was going to say a snooze," he finishes sheepishly.

Kate sighs in relief. "That sounds perfect."

"See? Begging for rest."

"Far from it. I'm not done with you yet, Castle, but the next round might be better if we've had some sleep."

He doesn't question that, but she can tell there's some awe there, that she's here and not bridling yet.

They emerge from the shower and Castle hops across the bathroom to fetch two enormous, decadent towels from his linen closet, offering quite a delectable view of his incredible ass. She's used to lean, flat, muscular ones, but had no idea until, oh about an hour ago, that that wasn't her type. Apparently her type is luscious, full, a little bit lasciviously protrusive. The way her hands have to torque and angle up as she runs them down his back. Kate blows a breath out through pursed lips. Sheesh. No wonder she couldn't keep her hands off it earlier.

His eyes are sparkling with suppressed wit as he hands her a thick navy towel, complete with his initials embroidered in gold thread.

"Do I need to put some clothes on?" she asks as she tips her head upside down to rub the towel through her hair. She feels his thumb trip over her curved spine and smiles. She should expect it, really. After all, he touches things.

"The answer to that question will always be no, Kate."

"But will Martha be back soon? In case you hadn't noticed, your walls are made of bookcases."

"Nope. Sent her to the Hamptons. Feel free to jaywalk throughout the apartment at your leisure."

"Maybe later," she smiles. "Let's just go to bed, kay, Castle?"

"Kay."

It feels completely natural to climb into his big bed next to him. He reaches over her to turn off the light and his clean Castle scent floods her, calms her. Never in a million years did she think this would be so easy. She shivers when he lays a hand on her hip, rolls her onto her side, and covers the length of her back with his chest. Oh. Richard Castle is _spooning_ her. She presses back into him and purrs, caught on the edge of sleep.

"I like this," she whispers.

"You're full of surprises. Who knew that the formidable Katherine Beckett was secretly a cuddler extraordinaire?" Even though his voice is gruff, he's still articulate, and she's learning that even when he's shattered Castle can string an eloquent sentence together.

"Am I not what you expected?" There's a note of sorrow in her voice.

"Again, I may have had an inkling. I like to think I know you better than most people do."

He's always been able to see her, truly see her. He's the only one who has bothered to look past the facade she puts up. She's glad he's not completely surprised by some of her more affectionate tendencies. Maybe someday she'll tell him about her fourteen year old self, how she used to call the couch during sleepovers with her friends so that when they put a movie on she could press herself against the back and pretend it was someone holding her.

"You know me better than anyone, Castle."

It's both compliment and confession. He squeezes her gently, touched by her admission.

"I think there's a lot still left for me to learn. I thought I knew you so well, but tonight I caught glimpses of so many new layers to the Beckett Onion. Including some, umm, extremely sexy layers. Thank you for showing them to me. Thank you for coming here."

"Thank you for answering the door. Even if you didn't think it would be me."

They're silent for a moment, the tension from their earlier fight resurfacing and marring the bliss of the last few hours.

"Castle." Kate turns her head so she can see him, and can't resist brushing a kiss to his full lower lip. "I do still have a lot I want to say. I'm not going to chicken out on my apology just because we…"

She can't say it. Because '_had sex'_ seems so bland. _'Fucked' _seems entirely inappropriate. _'Made love'_ is probably the closest, but it sounds too pretentious.

"Hey. Kate. Stop thinking so loud. Let's talk when we wake up, okay? Let's let tonight be just about … making each other feel good." She hears the words he really wanted to say. _Let tonight be about love._

"Okay. Good night, Castle."

"Sleep tight, Beckett. Don't let the bed bugs bite."

She smiles, thinking back to the first time she called him out on his inability to say a simple good night. _ 'I'm a writer. Night is boring. Until tomorrow is more hopeful.'_

She feels him relax behind her and hears his breathing even out.

In the amniotic dark, Kate gives herself a moment to let the magnitude of the evening sink in. It's staggering, vast, immense, and overwhelming. Just thinking about him - about the things they've done - makes her stomach drop in a heady, dizzying rush. To be honest, that's been happening a lot lately, but now it's magnified tenfold. When she thinks of the way he'd worked her body, the sensations he'd evoked … it makes her want to do something stupid like climb a mountain and beat her chest and yell like Tarzan. But even that couldn't adequately express this joy, nothing could, except for maybe a hundred thousand exquisite, exultant orgasms. That might begin to cover it. Oh, for fuck's sake, she's got it bad.

Over the past few hours, she hadn't let herself get into her own head even for a moment, and it had felt so good, so freeing. He tends to do that for her, pull her out of the mire of her own darkness. But she'd glossed over so many things that she'd planned on relishing. She'd raked her fingers over the lovely hair on the tops of his thighs and thought nothing of it at the time. God, she'd touched his _thighs_! She'd touched him everywhere. He'd touched _her_ everywhere. And now there's an overwhelming need to do it all again, over and over, as soon as possible.

It's _Castle_ behind her now, too warm at her back, but she doesn't want to move.

Castle's breath on her hair, his palm resting over her belly button.

Castle's leg between hers.

_Castle._

She lets it build in her, the strange mix of lust and fear and love, and it's not a mountain but maybe she could run up to his roof, naked, to dance, to jump, to celebrate this, because for the first time in over a decade she's feeling an overpowering emotion and it's not grief.

Maybe she should be thinking about today, about the beating she'd taken from Maddox, about her mother's case, but it's all been washed away by this man's relentless adoration and consummate skill.

"Stop thinking s'loud." Castle's words are slurred with sleep, but it's just what she needs to pull her out of herself. The adrenaline and lust have finally worked their way out of her veins and she can't hold on for a second longer. She melts on an exhale, falling instantly into a heavy slumber, warmer and more comfortable than she can ever remember being, heart fuller, future brighter.


	5. Chapter 5

_._

* * *

><p><strong>The Magnitude of These Small Hours<strong>  
>Part 5<p>

* * *

><p>Kate wakes up just before four a.m., snapping out of a dead sleep to find her blood coursing through her veins in a panicked rush. She's too full of words to go back to sleep. The apologies are clamoring to get out.<p>

She tries to turn in the tight circle of Castle's arms and finds that her skin is melded to his. She's hot. Sticky. It's something she would hate with anyone else, but with him it feels … different. And that's why she needs to talk to him. It can't wait any longer.

"Castle?" she whispers, peeling away from his chest and turning so she can see his face. His mouth is tipped up in a smile even in sleep, and she reaches for the lock of hair that's falling disobediently over his forehead. She's struck by its softness - she must have felt his hair at some point during their previous two rounds, but she'd been too swamped with other sensations to savor the texture properly. She takes a moment to run her fingers through it, pressing lightly into his scalp, and he murmurs something that sounds like her name.

"Castle," she sings softly. "Wake up."

His breathing changes, and she can sense his consciousness returning like a submarine surfacing. The only warning she has before he moves on her is the snap-quick opening of one blue eye, and then he's moving way too fast for someone who just woke up. He rolls them over, pressing her body small and flat under his, and then he just starts assaulting her with feverish, deep, surging kisses that are sucking her heart right out of her body through her mouth, and she wanted to talk but this is okay too, naked skin pressed together and heat rising between them …

And then he takes her wrists and stretches her arms out above her head, and her eyes almost cross with dizzy, aching need.

"Castle, hey - _oh my God - _wait - "

He draws back long enough to mumble an apology. "Sorry - did you want to? - I'll stop," he stutters, but then their eyes clash and this time it's her tongue invading his mouth. When they come up for air he chuckles.

"Sorry about that. I obviously have no self control anymore," he says with an embarrassed little shrug. "I just really wanted to kiss you."

She can hardly speak, breathless with wanting him. She could easily go for another round, but they have to talk now, or all of this amazing sex is going to wipe all of the hurt and misunderstandings away, and as good as that sounds, they need to sort things out. In her experience, under rug swept is not the healthiest way to go.

"Castle, I think we need to put some clothes on."

"What? Why?" he blurts out. His brow instantly furrows, in confusion or hurt, she can't tell. He's still got her arms pinned above her head, but she cranes her neck up and soothes her lips over one droopy eyebrow.

"Because I still have some stuff I need to get off my chest. And frankly, as long as you're not wearing clothes, that's not going to be possible."

"Why, Detective Beckett, whatever do you mean? That you're simply unable to keep your hands off me?"

Kate wiggles her fingers, and he looks up to where his hands are still holding her wrists. "My hands are clearly unoccupied," she says.

"Hmm. Touche." He gives her one last kiss and lets go. "Hey, you hungry?"

Now that he mentions it, she definitely is. She nods. He jumps out of bed and hops over to his dresser, opening almost every drawer and piling clothes on top in his search for an outfit. She's loving the opportunity to just watch him. He balances on the balls of his feet, and his frenetic hopping is doing things to his ass that are going to be very hard for her to forget.

Her tongue feels weird in her mouth, and she knows exactly what she needs to fix it. She wouldn't ask if it was anyone else, would ignore the craving, but he's her partner, her best friend, and if anyone would appreciate the absurdity of this particular habit of hers it would probably be him.

"Hey, Castle? Do you, uh, have any peanut butter?"

"Yeah, but if you're looking for an old-school PB and J, we've only got ciabatta bread," he says, still rifling through his drawers.

"Just the peanut butter will be fine."

"I didn't know you liked peanut butter. How do I not know this about you?"

"Because you've never had sex with me before," she challenges.

He freezes just as he's finished putting his boxers on. He turns to her, now fully covered_ (what a shame)_ and stares like he's fallen just a bit harder for her.

"Wait. Are you saying you shovel spoonfuls of plain peanut butter only after getting laid?"

She stretches out on top of the wrinkled sheets and watches his eyes darken, and then rolls out of bed and slinks over to him, coming just close enough to brush her bare breasts against him before answering with a purring_ mm-hmm._

"You are so weird," he says. "God, I love you."

His face freezes in shock, and she knows that the words tumbled out all on their own, without his consent. She kisses him before either of them freak out.

When their lips part, she tries to tell him with her eyes that one of the topics on her list tonight - this morning, really - is those very words. He seems to understand, and holds her gaze as he reaches for another shirt and pair of boxers to hand to her.

She slides them on wordlessly and wonders if he knows how long she's been wanting to wear his clothes, wonders if he let everyone he's slept with wear them. He tips her chin up and sees the question that's lurking there in her eyes. No one's ever been able to read her like this before.

"Before I was married to Gina, I used to have a pair of women's pajama's in the closet, tags still on, in case of emergencies. It was too creepy to let anyone borrow Alexis' or my mother's clothes." He brushes his thumbs over the hem of the shirt he's given her. "No one's ever worn my Luke Skywalker shirt before."

She tries to control her breathing, both at the spike of jealousy at the mention of the one-night stands that she's known about all along, and at the tender awe in his eyes as he takes her in, his soft purple boxers hanging low on her hips and the even softer, almost worn through black t-shirt. The collar is cut off and ripped into a V, large enough on her that it slips off one shoulder, coming dangerously close to baring her chest.

She's careful, quiet, when she asks. "And after Gina?"

He levels a look on her that she's only seen a handful of times, and it's so deep and genuine that her stomach clenches and her lungs quit working.

"After Gina 2.0, there was someone I was waiting for, so I tossed the pajamas. Didn't figure this certain someone to be a plaid kind of girl. Seriously though, if you want to know the whole truth, Kate, I quit with all the playboy stuff after you shot Coonan."

"Really? What about Ellie Monroe?" she teases.

Castle blanches. "A momentary lapse in judgement. She didn't hold a candle to you, and I hadn't even kissed you yet."

"And now that you have kissed me?"

Heat flares in his eyes. Because they've done a lot more than kissing. "Still. No candle."

His hands settle on her waist and then work their way up under her _(his)_ shirt, stroking long lines on her sides from just under her breasts to the swell of her hips. He groans. "Ugh, Kate, are you sure you want to talk right now? The only thing I want you to get off your chest is that shirt."

"Yep, I'm sure. Hands off, Mr. Hotshot Novelist," she says, prying his palms from her skin. "To the kitchen."

She sashays out of the bedroom and she's barely made it past the door frame when he crowds against her back, wrapping his massive arms around her and burrowing under her very unruly hair to drop kisses on the slope of her neck. He hasn't shaved and she starts to giggle.

"Discovery #315: Detective Beckett giggles when I kiss her on the neck," he says. They're still walking clumsily towards the kitchen, tangled up in each other.

She crosses her arms over his and squeezes. "Only when you're all scratchy. And only 315? Thought there'd be more than that by now."

"Sorry, I should have said Kate. There's about three billion facts I know about Detective Beckett. Much to my chagrin, I know a lot less about Kate." His voice drops suddenly. "But I know that watching you come for me is the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen."

She nearly flies out of her skin at his words. _Shit_, that came out of nowhere. She closes her eyes and tilts back into him. The way he holds her, the way they're swaying slightly, here in the middle of his kitchen…

She's never felt so loved.

They stay like that for a while, and she wonders if he's trying to wrap his head around this too. She had known her feelings for him ran deep, but she'd never dreamed it would be like this. That she could ever feel like this.

Without speaking, Castle turns her in his arms so she's facing him, then she stares up at him with wide eyes as he traces over the smooth skin of her shoulder where it peeks out from under his shirt. He trails his fingertips down over her elbow, her wrist, and then he takes her hand in his. His other hand falls low on her back, and before she knows it, they're dancing. Dancing in his freaking kitchen.

She breathes out a laugh, teasing him even though she's captivated by this, by him. "Getting a little sappy in here, Castle."

"You love it."

And for once, she doesn't argue. They sway on the spot until she relaxes into it and rests her head on his broad shoulder, until the tears start gathering in her eyes.

"Come on, let's get you your peanut butter," he whispers at last, and she's not sure how he does it, but it doesn't feel like the spell's been broken. He can't seem to stop touching her as they collect their snacks and settle onto his couch. She sits beside him, but then reconsiders and swings both legs over his lap. His hand strokes up and down her shin absently, waiting for her to finish her first spoonful of peanut butter.

He's quiet, and the easy comfort of this evening fades into something unsure and tense. He's brooding, probably doubting her sincerity, and she's not sure how that's possible now that he's been _inside _her, because she sure as hell isn't backing out now. She knows the silence is her cue to start talking, so she sets the jar of peanut butter down and takes a deep breath.

"I'm not very good at talking about stuff, but I meant it when I said that I'm sorry, Castle."

"Kate, honestly, you don't have to - "

"I do. You deserve an explanation. You deserved better, Castle, you still deserve better than me - " he starts to interrupt then, but she presses her fingers over his lips. "but if it's really me that you want, I'm going to be as good as I can be for you.

"Um, I think it's been pretty obvious that it's you that I want."

"Has it? I mean, I wasn't sure you really meant it when you said you loved me at the cemetery."

Castle looks at her, slack-jawed. "How could you not tell? I'm about as transparent as Saran Wrap when it comes to you, Kate. I haven't been following you around for four years just for fun. I did mean it, at the cemetery. I'd been feeling it for a while."

"Can I - can I ask how long? Or is that -?"

"No, no, of course you can ask." Castle scrubs his hand over his face, thinking, then shakes his head.

"Honestly, I'm not sure. I've always been attracted to you, but you knew that. And that first case, when I tried to figure out your backstory, you looked so hurt, and I felt like such a jackass. I think I'd already started caring about your feelings, which is maybe what the beginning of love is. And it just grew, every day, with every smile I weaseled out of you, with every wacky situation we got into, and before I knew it making you laugh was more important to me than pretty much anything else in my life. So yeah," he sighs, "a long time."

"I didn't know. I'm such an idiot," she whispers.

"Well, I guess I could have been a little bit more obvious."

"And I'm so sorry for what I said yesterday. Even as it was coming out of my mouth, I wanted to take it back, to tell you that I didn't mean it, that it was my darkest parts talking, but I just kept going, and then you left - " she breaks off, taking a shuddering breath.

It's not how he wanted to spend the evening, dredging up all this darkness. He wants to move forward with her, and the fact that she's talking at all is more than he ever expected.

"Kate, the rest of it - whatever you wanted to apologize for, it's really okay. It was my choice to stick with you through the last four years, and I wouldn't take it back, so you don't have to say you're sorry."

"But … aren't there things you need to know? I'd need more if I was you."

"Having you here now is more than enough, Kate." He kisses the top of her head, and she lifts her face from his chest, trying to look as open and encouraging as possible.

"But - well - there is one thing that I don't really get."

"My shooting," she guesses.

"Yeah. I mean, I have a pretty well-developed imagination, but I couldn't come up with anything to explain why you didn't call. At least, nothing that I liked. Things were getting better between us. I thought maybe Josh had asked you not to talk to me or something after I got you into that mess, and - "

"If Josh had told me not to see you anymore I would have told him to go fuck himself. In fact, that's sort of what happened, although I may not have used those exact words." She grits her teeth together, just a little hint of anger returning at the thought of that breakup.

"But to answer your question - the shooting - the hospital - all of that, it just really made me see how fucked up I was. How bad for you I'd be. I would have taken so much from you, needed so much. Until that day, it was all emotional, but suddenly I had a hole in my chest and I would have needed physical things too, and I know, I know, you would have given it without blinking, but I want to be good for you too.

"And maybe I could have let myself be selfish, but you tried to take a bullet for me, Castle. I've put your life in danger more times than I can count, and if you'd been in the back of that ambulance bleeding out instead of me, I would have never recovered.

"So as much as I wanted you, I went to the cabin because you were safer without me. For weeks I was convinced that whoever was after me was going to just walk into my dad's house and finish me off, and by that point, I don't think I even cared enough to fight. I just didn't have the energy. I turned off my phone and unplugged the landline to make sure I was off the grid, but every noise I heard in the night, I thought it was that sniper coming for me.

"When I got back to the city, it started to sink in that maybe I wasn't in immediate danger. And then I saw you, and it was like I hadn't been away for three months, and the selfishness took over again and I just needed to see you, didn't mind the middle of the night body drops because I could call you and see you. I started to let you back in, even though we still weren't safe. And we're still in danger now, and I can say sorry for a thousand things, but I don't want to apologize for coming to you tonight."

"Hey," Castle says, drawing her into him. "That's one apology I wouldn't accept. The rest is all good though, okay?"

He cups her face and kisses his forgiveness into her with the press of his lips. It's exquisite, being with him. She'd known it would be good. If she'd known it would be this good she'd have given in to him years ago. She breaks the kiss only to press him into a tight hug, and even though the twisted position of her body on his lap makes it a little bit awkward, it makes her feel whole.

The first blue hints of dawn are starting to cast an ethereal glow over the loft. When he speaks, she lets the vibrations roll through her, and her cheek molds to the movement of his Adam's Apple.

"You must be exhausted, Kate."

"I'm okay, actually, but I wouldn't mind if you took me back to bed now," she says with a mischievous little grin.

He scoops her up off the couch and carries her towards the bedroom, wiping the smirk off her face with his own eager mouth.


	6. Chapter 6

_Please note that this is rated M. If you don't like anything beyond a bit of kissing turn back now!_

* * *

><p><strong>The Magnitude of These Small Hours<strong>  
>Part Six<p>

* * *

><p><em>Previously…<em>

_The first blue hints of dawn are starting to cast an ethereal glow over the loft. When Castle speaks, she lets the vibrations roll through her, and her cheek molds to the movement of his Adam's Apple. _

_"__You must be exhausted, Kate."_

_"__I'm okay, actually, but I wouldn't mind if you took me back to bed now," she says with a mischievous little grin._

_He scoops her up off the couch and carries her towards the bedroom, wiping the smirk off her face with his own eager mouth._

* * *

><p>They're passing through his office when the magnitude of it all hits him again. She's trailing her fingers over the smooth surface of his desk. She looks so shy and curious that Castle takes a moment to just stand in the doorway and watch. Seeing her there, wearing <em>his<em> clothes, stroking the desk where he writes about _her - _

It's too much.

He's on her in a second, gathering her body roughly up against his. She comes willingly, fitting into his arms with an ease beyond anything he ever imagined. He cradles her face in one hand and lets his thumb drift over her lower lip. She's so unexpectedly _soft. _Her lips. The curve on the underside of each breast. The warm, smooth junctures of her thighs, and the unthinkably soft, tight heat hidden between them. He's loved Detective Beckett the cop for years - he wasn't prepared for how fast and hard he'd fall for Kate Beckett the woman.

"God, I've wanted you for so long," he says, his voice hoarse with arousal.

And then he takes her mouth with his. His lips close around her bottom one, sucking and caressing. He's delighted by the noise she makes - it's identical to the one she made during their very first kiss.

Kate's hands slide up under the fabric of his shirt, over all that smooth muscle, and suddenly the undertow of lust she sees in his eyes is taking her down too. She's always liked sex, but the prospect of getting to have sex with _him _again is staggering. The borrowed boxers she's wearing are damp. She's pretty sure they've been that way since she put them on, wet with the remnants of their second round. When Castle backs her up against his desk, the hard edge digging into the backs of her thighs, a fresh slickness gathers.

His hardness is still muted, wrapped in jersey, and she's so eager to feel him again that she hikes herself up onto his desk and uses her toes to push his boxers off, hands flying to his shoulders to keep her balance.

He grabs the back of her head as he deepens his kiss. She's never really felt that a kiss could devour her but this one is. He's so strong and wide above her, but she still thinks she could get the upper hand back pretty easily. Strangely, she doesn't want to. That's new. She doesn't fight him as he tears her shirt off and lays her down.

She gasps at the cold wood on her bare skin, and at the jumble of items pressing into her back - the corner of his laptop, a pen or two, a remote, a pad of sticky notes maybe.

"Castle, your laptop - I don't want to - don't wanna break it - " she pants as she hears the plastic cover groan in protest under her weight.

"Don't care," he huffs between kisses. "Have backup. Besides, I'd chose the real you over typed Nikki smut any day." He tugs his boxers off of her then, and then runs his palms roughly over the inside of her thighs.

She lets out a whimper. She's naked on his desk. She wonders if she looks anything like the silhouette on the cover of _Naked Heat_. It strikes her suddenly that this is where Castle sat when he wrote the scene with Nikki and Rook and the tequila. This is possibly where he first thought about what she'd look like naked - okay, the fictional version of her, but still. Has he sat here alone in the dark of night, turning himself on with his own imagination? She's thought about him before, and he's a guy, so she's always been realistic about the possibility of Castle using her as … inspiration.

Maybe, if the loft was empty, he'd have felt brave enough to let his palm wrap around himself through his underwear. Maybe he's even pulled himself out into the cool air, tilted his head back and closed his eyes, and thought about how much better it would feel if it was her mouth on his cock instead of the tight, dry fist of his own hand.

She can definitely picture it, and _fuck_, it's hot.

Castle straightens so he can pull off his own shirt, and the absence of his touch, even though it's only for a few seconds, pulls her back down to earth.

And even though her world is soaked through with the glory of all this touching, she remembers with a jolt just _who _she's slept with. Is sleeping with.

Her partner, her co-worker. The nine-year old on a sugar rush. The person whose bedpost she once swore she'd never be a notch on. And when she opens her eyes to the man above her, she's completely thrown off by the dark desire she sees gleaming in his eyes. This is not the Castle she's used to.

The teasing was safe. Easy. Fun. This intoxicating, deep pleasure is on another level entirely.

Suddenly she feels alone and open on the desk, and when he reaches for the elastic at her waist, she stops him with one hand and covers her eyes with the other.

"Kate," he whispers, dropping kisses to each of her knuckles. The warmth of his body returns, covering her chest, and it makes her feel a little better.

"You okay?"

"Every time I close my eyes, I seem to stop believing that it's _you_ I'm touching, kissing."

"It is me. Just me. Sorry." What does he mean by that?

"Sorry? Castle, no. That's not what I mean at all." How could he think that? After the last few hours, after the last few years?

"It's never been like this for me," she whispers. "Maybe it's why I was so afraid of us, because it's so overwhelming. This is all so different; I can't believe you're the same Castle who's been pulling my pigtails all these years."

"Hmm." He props his chin up on her sternum and pretends to think. "What can I say to help remind you that it's me?"

"I don't know. Just kiss me, I'll get past it." But instead of obeying, he smoothes his hands from where they're curved around her ribcage over her hips and down to her knees. He's never pushed her emotions aside, has always encouraged her to feel them. She loves that about him.

"I'm a little in shock too, if that makes you feel any better," he says carefully. "It's an enormous shift."

"Yeah. You feel it too?"

"Yeah, of course. Loving someone from the sidelines and then getting to love them for real? Touch them for the first time in any significant way? It's huge, Kate."

She combs her fingers through his hair, a little embarrassed by how much she loves this man.

"Yesterday, I'd get hard every time I helped you get into your coat. Because touching your hair, feeling the heat rise from your neck, smelling that infuriatingly delicious shampoo - I just couldn't help myself. Did you know that?"

"No," she whispers.

"That's because we weren't _this_ yet. I had to hide it from you. And now, feel," he says, guiding her hand to the front of his boxers. "I don't have too. That's kind of cool, right?"

She laughs, then squeezes him. It is very cool. Almost as cool as knowing what's inside the pants she's been fantasizing about for a while now.

"And regarding touching - yesterday, I was lucky if my fingers got to brush your neck. Today, I can touch you in so many other places. Like here," he says, tracing an arc from one hipbone to the other, over the soft, jumping flesh that holds all the parts that make her a woman, "and here," he says, dragging her underwear off and coming back to run the rough print of his index finger through her folds, up one crease and down another. Delicately. Carefully. She fights for air.

"Yesterday, I knew what your mouth tasted like, from one extraordinary kiss, and now," he kneels before her and spreads her open, "I've tasted you here."

His tongue replaces his fingers, exploring the flesh he'd just awakened. He spreads her wetness from her opening upwards and finishes with a French kiss to her clit that makes her whole body twitch.

"Yesterday, I was your partner," he says, sliding one of his stocky fingers into her. "Your plucky sidekick." He adds another. "And today I'm more. A lot more, I hope." He finishes by landing his thumb on her clit.

"Everything," she pants. "You're everything." He's moving now, the push and pull of his fingers, the circling of his thumb, all of it working in tandem to tease a waterfall of tingles from her nerves.

And then he's doing something that makes her clamp her legs together on his face, and she's squirming under him.

"Oh, fuck - Castle - " she's trying to pry his fingers away but he carefully interlocks them with his own and drags her hand away from herself. With the fingers he has buried inside her, he zeroes in on the spot that had her writhing.

She looks drugged out of her mind and her voice is colored with wondrous disbelief when she asks him what he's doing, in between what look like completely uncontrollable tosses of her head. He hears the thunk of bone on wood and hopes that she's not going to knock herself out.

He chuckles.

"What? You didn't know this was here?" He presses up harder, directly under her clit, and rubs.

"Uh - I - holy _FUCK_!" she screams. "Stop - stop, I think I'm gonna - "

He does stop, just for a second. She whines in protest. They will definitely need to arrange more clear safe word. She obviously didn't really want him to stop.

"Am I hurting you?" he asks.

"No - it just feels like I'm going to, um, pee or something when you do that."

Oh.

"Trust me?" he says, rubbing her clit slowly, sending sparks climbing back up the ladder of her spine.

"O- okay," she stutters.

He starts to move again, sharp and determined, seeking to replicate the exact combination of movements he had going before that made her scream.

She's breathing hard, and in the early dawn light he can see a mottled pink flush start to take over her body, her blood rushing under the strain of a thousand muscles tensing and coiling.

And then she stops breathing altogether. Her eyes fly open and wildly seek out his own. She clamps down hard around his fingers. He presses two more tight circles, one inside, one out, and she croaks out his name as she comes all over his hand.

Like actually all over his hand. He's soaking, and she's still gushing, and he can actually hear the sound of drops hitting the hardwood floor beneath them. Most of her wetness is on his hand. Seeing as she's hanging halfway off the desk, even her thighs have missed getting very wet.

She's gone completely limp on the table, and her skin is shining and dappled pink. He'd suspected that he'd found her g-spot, but he hadn't been expecting _that. _He's damn proud.

He's seen her come three times now, and he wonders how each one of them can be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

He presses kisses onto her trembling thighs, lets his tongue dart out to lick up the sheen of sweat. He's getting harder by the second, turned on by the complete mess she's made of his floor. Not to mention a silly, buoyant sense of pride. He's worked really hard to be good in bed, but achieving that? On their first night together? Damn. But then again, he's always know that they'd be great together.

He finds the grey puddle that is his Luke Skywalker shirt on the table next to her arm and wipes some of the wetness from his hand, but honestly, he doesn't mind being covered in Kate, so he only does a half-ass job of drying himself before he gently slides his hands under her back, curving her up against him and lifting her.

She winds around him like a sleepy koala, and her eyes stay closed, her breathing still ragged and body still spent.

He lays her down on the bed. It's a sea of wrinkles. His eye is drawn for a second to where the fitted sheet is coming off of one corner.

Once she's laid out flat, Kate blinks, finally coming down from her high. He crawls over her to kiss her. It's slow then, how she finds him with her hand as they're kissing, stroking him from base to tip. She lazily works him up, and he runs his hands over her breasts and stomach, trying to stir her nerve endings back to life.

"Why are your hands wet?" she whispers.

"Uh - it's you."

"Me? What do you mean?"

"When you came - "

"Oh my god." She rolls out from under him, mortified.

"Come back here," he grates, pulling her back and pinning her down with his weight. "It was gorgeous. And it looked like it felt amazing."

She turns her head to the side, squeezing her eyes shut. "Kate? Have you ever done that before?"

She shakes her head no and brings a hand up to press over her eyelids.

"Hey. I'm honored," he says, and then he gently pries her fingers from her face. He waits for her to open her eyes, and when she does, he fixes her with his most devoted, genuine stare.

She surges up to kiss him, but then she squirms out from under him. He gets his bearings back to find her standing by the bed tugging on his hand.

"Let's just go clean you up, okay," she says, ducking her head.

They're halfway to the bathroom when he realizes he doesn't want to get cleaned up.

He crowds her up against the wall next to the bathroom door and closes her mouth with his own. He doesn't have time for words, so he pulls back from the kiss to ask her with his eyes if this is okay. Her own hazel ones are alight when she gives him her encouragement, wrapping one leg high around his waist and tilting her pelvis up. They're aligned already, their heights a perfect match.

He presses up into her in one swift, sharp thrust. As hot as wall sex is, his body is quickly running out of energy, so he spins them both and tosses her back onto the bed. He's about to start in on her again - _shit_, when did he start having sex like a damn animal? - when she turns away from him and scrambles up onto her hands and knees.

His mouth goes dry.

And then he really is out of control, snagging her hips and pulling her to the very edge of the bed, guiding himself inside and memorizing the angle and position of her so he can draw back and just _pound_.

The round on the bed was tender, slow, and perfect. The shower had been slow too, all about teasing out their orgasms. But this - this is carnal. This is raw.

And it's definitely not going to last long.

She's cussing again when he feels himself tighten, and he blindly reaches around to help her fall with him, but finds her fingers already hard at work, and that fact alone pushes him over the edge.

They come together, names clashing with groans. The pleasure devastates them for whole seconds before they collapse.

Their bodies give up then. The day has been simultaneously one of the worst and quite possibly the best, in both of their lives. Castle barely has the strength to pull the sheets up over them. They don't have time to think or talk at all before they both pass out.

* * *

><p>When Castle wakes up again, it's nearly ten.<p>

He's alone.

He sits up, pulse pounding hard. He scans the room, his heart falling with a sickening thud somewhere south of his ribcage when he sees that the other side of the bed is empty and the bathroom door is open and in shadow.

Then he hears her footsteps.

Kate comes through the open doorway with two cups of coffee in hand. She's radiant. She's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, but this morning she's just luminous.

She stayed. Last night was real. Every minute of it - every kiss, every apology, every long moment of ecstasy.

And then she speaks, and she brings them into the daylight with her words, and he knows this is really, truly, finally happening between them.

"Made you a coffee."

* * *

><p><strong>The Beginning.<strong>

* * *

><p><em>AN: __How's that for a "Even the part where I - ?" :) That was a little more hardcore than my usual writing; hope it was okay._

_This last chapter would never have made it out without my dear friend Meg's help and inappropriate messages - you are amazing and so much fun._

_Thank you all so much for going on this little journey with me into the world of the night after 'Always.' I know there are lots of stories about this episode out there already, so thank you for all the follows, faves, and reviews! I truly appreciate it and I love writing for you guys. Your thoughts - and just the fact that there's anyone out there reading my words - make me smile a dozen times a day. _

_Until next fic, _  
><em>-Bri x<em>


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